I don’t know why I was reluctant to play the trailer for Mike Newell and Jerry Bruckheimer‘s Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (5.28). I guess it was because I knew it would deliver the same old deluge of grandiose CG that looks like nothing except grandiose CG, and the same sublime feeling of being soaked in Eloi-pandering oatmeal. And you know it’ll play like gangbusters when it opens a little more than six months hence.

I love the colloquial dialogue (“Don’t press your luck”), hunky Jake Gyllenhaal diving Batman-style from a great height (a mandatory bit in action epics for the last decade or so), Ben Kingsley conniving his heart out, Alfred Molina saving up for his retirement, etc. “Only the dagger can unlock the sands of time, and there are those who would use this power to destroy the world,” etc. The persistent spirit of Stephen Sommers — corporate factory candy for the toads.